No Condos, Please:
Old Armory Finds
New Life in Porn

Other Plans Fall Victim
To San Francisco Zoning;
Fears of 'Dark Spirits'

By

Vauhini Vara

Updated Feb. 7, 2007 12:01 a.m. ET

SAN FRANCISCO -- When the National Guard left this city's historic State Armory and Arsenal building in 1975, the big Moorish castle fell into disrepair. Today, it has a controversial new lease on life.

Over the years, developers suggested turning the 1914 building, which is a mile from City Hall on the edge of the Mission District, into a church, storage space or an apartment complex. But proposals kept getting shot down, many of them falling victim to the city's powerful Planning Department and a thicket of zoning rules....